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Sometimes as you peruse your bookshelf, you know nothing but a classic will do. And nothing in the picture book world is more classic than Dr. Seuss! This lesser-known Suess is tons of fun and a perfect fit for little guys who like a bit of creepiness in their tall tales. The new glow-in-the-dark edition is extra fun, too!

Walking in the woods one night, the main character of this wacky little volume spies ‘a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them’. He’s normally not afraid of anything, but when he starts seeing these spooky empty pants moving about everywhere he goes he becomes terrified of them. Finally one night he comes face-to-face with the pale green pants and starts screaming and yelling for help. How will the pants react, and what will become of this unwanted encounter?

This is a cute story with a happy ‘don’t be afraid of something just because it’s different than you’ ending. The illustrations are classic Seuss with a dark twist. Almost everything but the main character and the pants is just black line drawing on a green background, lending the book an excellent spooky night-time feel.

Blend the whimsical rhyming genius of Dr. Seuss with a creepy mystery to get to the bottom of and what do you have? A book that thrills our mini horror-fiends. Worth a read!

For those who are fans of folklore, monsters, or just a good yarn, this picture book is a real treat. Steve Vernon’s wild tales about the monsters of the Maritime region are brought vividly to life by the talented illustrations of Jeff Soloway, creating a lively picture book that kids will love.

With a colourful full-page illustration, imaginative story and loads of factoids for each of the fifteen monsters in the book, you’ll learn more than you even knew was possible about the mythical beasts of the maritimes. From location and diet to a detailed physical description and special advice for monster-hunting, Vernon covers it all.

From ‘Old Hook Snout’ to ‘Sheila the Sea Hag’, this is a great little book. As a set of bedtime tales, entertainment for your little one’s next campfire soiree, or just for fun, you won’t be disappointed!

The Book That Eats People, written by John Perry and illustrated by Mark Fearing

If you decide to take our advice and check out this book, please be careful. It eats people. First it ate Sammy Ruskin. Then it trashed a pile of books and ate a library security guard before disguising itself as a book about dolphins to get a little girl to take it home with her. Yes…the book ate her too. AND a group of children who found it in a box in an alley! So the police put it in jail, where it ate another prisoner. The book gets sent to the zoo for rehabilitation and they try feeding it all sorts of delicious things, but to no avail. The book CRAVES people!

Some survival tips for handling this book:

1. Close it and put heavy things on top if you hear growling and think it’s getting hungry.

2. Never ever read it alone!

3. Never read or hold the book while you have food on your hands or in your pockets.

4. If you hear a noise ‘like an octopus in a tub of yogurt’, the book is starving and you’d better put it near somebody who looks like they might be delicious (every man for himself when it comes to people-eating books, I suppose).

This book is hilariously dark and gruesome, I love it! It’s awesome for reading out loud, especially if you’re not afraid to rant and rave and carry on (my personal specialty!). It’s especially fun if the book occasionally jumps off your lap and tries to eat the audience (okay, maybe that would be traumatizing for a more sensitive child, but mine thought it was funny…use good judgment here, folks!). The art is fantastic and has a dark humour all its own.

I really consider The Book That Eats People a must-have for a children’s horror collection. Run out and grab a copy! Just exercise caution – the book is always hungry.

So…it’s November. Halloween madness has come to an end. All the crazy build-up to one night of horror-themed fun has reached its inevitable conclusion.

BUT!

This year, November 1st isn’t just about sugar crashes and cleaning up the chaos caused by a night full of trick-or-treaters. This year, you get one more chance to extend Halloween by digging through the photos you took yesterday (or last year, or a decade ago!) and entering our KinderScares Halloween Kids photo contest!

We have some fun prizes for your little monsters and will be announcing the winners on November 6th (so we have enough time to sort through and agonize over the choices…it’s always so hard to pick a winner!).

So get cracking and hang onto the Halloween spirit just a little longer! We love love love the entries we’ve received so far and can’t wait to see the rest!

This here is the KinderScares edition of our All Hallow’s Read book suggestions! Most of us have a little person or two in our lives we’d love to share some Halloween fun with, and All Hallow’s Read is the perfect tradition for it. Encourage literacy, get to shop for books, give a gift, and do something for Halloween…what could be better than that?!

I’ve been recommending spooky books for kids for a long time now, and I have a plethora of horror-themed suggestions floating around in my brain. But I’ve been procrastinating on this post for ages because the choices are killing me! I could have made a recommendation every day of this month (maybe I should do that next year?). Instead I have this one post to cram with beloved scary children’s books, and some guilt about all the awesome ones I won’t have space for. 😉

For a baby in your life, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Mouse outsmarts everyone in the deep dark woods and even shows up the terrifying gruffalo! Hilarious and cute as heck, it’s perfect for the tiniest monster-lovers and available as a board book!

For the picture book crowd (‘scary’ picture books are my favourite and I’m kind of hyperventilating having to choose just one!)…Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. This book is as good as parodies can get. SO GOOD and so hilarious for those of us who have read Goodnight Moon one to0 many thousand times.

(Cheating here because I can’t suggest just one: if you’re the one who’s going to be reading the picture book to your little fiends, consider checking out my ‘picture books horror-loving PARENTS will love’ suggestions…kids will love them too, don’t worry!)

For younger novel readers (and older ones, it’s versatile!), Coraline by Neil Gaiman. This is one of my favourite children’s novels! Coraline is the kind of awesome heroine we’d love to see more often in children’s literature – she’s smart, resourceful, honest and courageous, not to mention creative and self-reliant. Combined with a seriously creepy concept and a great story, it’s a winner for sure.

For the middle-grade crowd, Zombiekins by Kevin Bolger. This is a scary book that is also plain old FUN as hell! Zombiekins is the middle-grade equivalent of all your favourite b-grade flicks on paper. Any kid with a penchant for thrills and big, vivid imagery will get a serious kick out of this book. Hell, the grown-up kids will too!

We hit up YA earlier this month, so I’m stopping at middle grade and resisting the urge to add extra titles to each category. But if there’s a kid in your life you’re looking to pick a book for and you’d like advice, don’t hesitate to drop us a line, we love to help! And I’d be thrilled to hear YOUR scary book suggestions for kids in the comments!

All Hallow’s Read is a book-giving tradition thought up by author Neil Gaiman. We’ll be making book suggestions all month long in case you need ideas!